Frédérique Pollet Rouyer: 18 Years

Morgane turns 18. She lives with her father and brother. Her mother lives somewhere else. Morgane still keeps her teddy bears lined up at her bed, but she is also the young girl on her way to adulthood caring about her looks and studies. Morgane tries to get in contact with her mother, who left the home due to alcohol abuse – and left Morgane with mental scars and a constant unsuccesful attempt to get in contact with her.   

It’s a very well made situational documentary that the director/cameraperson/editor, all in same person, has done. It has the tone and the freshness of the young girl, who has allowed the camera to get very close to her mixed feelings of anger and pain. It is moving and conveys an atmosphere of authenticity around the protagonist… and it reminds us of the qualities of the short film genre, far too often forgotten in these one-hour-duration-television-documentary-times.

Belgium/France, 22 mins.

To be shown at
http://www.visionsdureel.ch/
 
http://balibari.com/

Orjonikidze & Arsenishvili: Altzaney

The camera work is brilliant. It is a constant caress of the protagonist of this short documentary from Georgia. Her name is Altzaney and she is the one who is trusted to solve problems in the local community in the Pankisi gorge. In the first 50 seconds of the film you see hands, white linen being cut by scissors and the face of an old woman. At the end of the film you see that the white linen is used to wrap a corpse for burial. All taken care of by Altzenay.

And at the end you have the feeling of having met a charismatic, lovely old woman with quite extraordinary skills to fulfill the position she has been given as negociator, as the one all troubles are taken to, as the one who cleans the small mosque and takes the lead in the women’s singing, dancing and praying at the modest holy place. She is picked up by cars as a diplomat, she is followed to a wedding, to a family to solve problems, she is called ”granny”, and the camera performs beautiful moves to get close to her face and give us the environment. In short intercuts Altzenay talks directly to the camera about this her mission in life.

Another excellent inside to a place in Georgia, as was the film ”Their Helicopter” by Salome Jashi written about on filmkommentaren.dk.

Georgian documentary talent. Support it! Buy for broadcast. Screen their films at festivals.

Nino Orjonikidze & Vano Arsenishvili: Altzaney, 2009, 31 mins.

http://www.artefact.ge/

Jorge Léon: 10 min.

Still photos from a prostitution environment, without any persons pictured,   accompany the words from a witness statement to the police. It is a alarming declaration read by a male voice, straight forward and neutral without any attempt to touch the viewer emotionally. The right choice as the text is so strong in content that it touches to hear another trafficking victim come up with her detailed story about her being promised a fine job as a nurse for an old woman in Belgium, just to find out that the job that was waiting for her was prostitution. She flees her window place, and goes back to Bulgaria where the trafficking mafia finds her and makes her object to countless sexual assaults. She goes back to Belgium and reports.

Trafficking testimonies like this are well known in beforehand from newspapers, tv, other documentaries… this is (also) the new Europe, and we should be reminded. The film does its information well.

Belgium, 2009, 19 mins. Shown at Cinéma du Réel 2009:

http://www.cinereel.org/

jorgeleon@skyney.be

Anja Schwyzer: Nebenlauf (Tributary)

A minimalistic film school diploma work, full of tension and importance, with a terrifying story told through staged interviews with the director’s parents, a sister and a boyfriend. Intertwined to these fragments of words that carry the narrative – about what happened to the director when she was abroad, driving a car and accepting a hiker to step in – some grainy unfocused dreamerish, not abstract but sort of unreal, super-8 mm images stress an atmosphere of something that had to be told for the sake of all those involved, who experienced the consequences of what happened to the director. They tell her how she was, when she came back to them. Therapy for both parties, the one, who suffered, the director, and the relatives around her? Maybe, but one of those films that cross the border from private to personal and thus becomes interesting for all of us. Because it has such a stringent form, all necessary ”fat” is cut away, nothing is sentimental and yet the film is very moving.  

Switzerland, 2008, 14 mins.

The film was in the Generation DOK Leipzig 2008:

http://www.dok-leipzig.de/v2/cms/en/home/index.html

ARTE celebrates the Louvre Pyramid

20 years have gone since the architect I.M. Pei could show his Louvre pyramid to the public. Heavily discussed back then, but now in general considered as an architectural masterpiece of our time, one of the many monuments decided by Francois Mitterrand.

On this occasion the European cultural channel ARTE dedicates a whole day, next saturday April 25, to the Pyramid through the broadcast of no less than 6 documentaries.

Two of them are new productions: Frédéric Compain tells about the strong opposition and discussions before the building of the pyramid was decided, and Stan Neumann has got unique access to some of the best art conservators, restorers and historians, who are filmed discussing some of the jewels of the Louvre collection. Talking about jewels… the last film in so-called Theme-Day is of course the 20 years old masterpiece of Nicolas Philibert, ”La ville Louvre”.

www.arte.tv

Leaf & Scheinfeld: The U.S. vs. John Lennon

The film was released in December 2006 but I did not get to see it before this saturday afternoon, thanks to SVT, Swedish Television: The story about John Lennon being harrassed by the American authorities during the Nixon administration. He was considered an enemy of the state with his constant Peace manifestations in and out of bed with Yoko Ono at his side. Ending with a deportation notice that was never put into action due to a strong lawyer who was able to prolong the court case again and again, until Nixon was re-elected in 1972 and the White House forgot about this rebel from Liverpool.

It is a highly entertaining documentary, a déjà vu, all in the film is known, it is a repetition but a lovely one for one who grew up with Lennon. Who was at the Beatles concert in Copenhagen in 1964 as a young fan, and who was walking the streets of London on December 9 1980 on holiday with wife and mother, facing the breaking news: John Lennon Shot Dead.

Totally formatted and an overwhelming praise to Lennon documentary: interviews (first and foremost Yoko Ono but also George McGovern and Bobby Seale and Angela Davis), archives from concerts and interviews with Lennon and the bed-in´s in Amsterdam and Montréal, and music all over. All we are Saying is Give Peace a Chance… Retro nostalgia, yes, history, yes, the film about Lennon, no.  

2006, 99 mins.

http://www.theusversusjohnlennon.com/

Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin 5

Bruno Ganz og Otto Sander kommer som disse frakkeklædte engle usynlige ind til de mange læsende (Rilkes scene fra “Malte Laurids Brigges Optegnelser”) på Staatsbibliothek. De kan, da de er engle, ikke kun høre tanker, men også, hvad der læses, og blandt de mange mumlende stemmer med sætninger om livet i regnskoven, om sommeren, som lakker mod enden, om merværdiafgift, om sammenfatning af ligninger, om kærligheden, om vemod ved soldaterne ved fronten og et bygkorn i øjet (i et Alban Berg brev), om DNA molekylet… skelner jeg:

“Walther Benjamin købte 1921 Paul Klees akvarel ANGELUS NOVUS. Indtil sin flugt fra Paris i juni 1940 hang det i hans vekslende arbejdsværelser. I sit sidste skrift “Über den Begriff der Geschichte”, 1940, fortolkede han billedet som allegori over tilbageblikket på historien…” Så tager andre stemmer over, men jeg erindrer Benjamins tekst:

“… Det viser en engel, som ser ud til at bevæge sig væk fra noget, han stirrer på. Hans øjne er vidtåbne, hans mund er åben, hans vinger er foldet ud. Det er sådan historiens engel må se ud. Hans ansigt er vendt mod fortiden. Mens en kæde af begivenheder er hvad vi oplever, ser han én enkelt katastrofe, som stabler tilintetgørelse på tilintetgørelse og slynger dem for hans fødder. Englen ville gerne blive, levende eller død, og gøre helt igen, hvad der er blevet knust. Men en storm blæser fra Paradis, og den har fået fat i hans vinger. Den er så stærk, at englen ikke kan folde dem sammen. Den storm driver ham uimodståelig ind i fremtiden, som han vender ryggen til, mens stablen af murbrokker foran ham vokser mod himlen. Denne storm er hvad vi kalder fremskridt…”

Som Fassbinder og Pasolini i deres film, skildrer Wenders i sin film det, Klees og Benjamins engel ser..

Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin, 1987. 122 min. Manuskript (monolog og digt): Peter Handke, kamera: Henri Alekan, klip: Peter Przygodda, medvirkende: Bruno Ganz, Solveig Dommartin, Otto Sander, Curt Bois og Peter Falk. DVD, Arthaus 2005, 500941, Wim Wnders Edition. Litt.: Wim Wenders und Peter Handke: Der Himmel über Berlin, ein Filmbuch, 1987. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Walther Benjamin: Über den Begriff der Geschichte, 1940, i Gesammelte Schriften I, side 691-704. Suhrkamp Verlag, Frankfurt am Main. Foto: Paul Klee: Angelus Novus.

Wim Wenders: Der Himmel über Berlin 4

Vi havde Berlinaften på Nordisk Designhøjskole i aftes. Eleverne rejser i dag på studierejse til byen, og hele dagen i går gik med forberedelser. Der var foredrag om Berlins historie og topografi og om aftenen kørte de “Der Himmel über Berlin”, som jeg var derude for at introducere.

Vi talte om Walter Benjamins optagethed af Paul Klees ANGELUS NOVUS, som Tue Steen Müller så sjovt samtidig sidder og skriver om. Jeg fortalte eleverne, at Tue og jeg i julen var i Berlin og en lang aften gik omkring i den store Paul Klee udstilling i det moderne kunstmuseum. Et særligt afsnit der var indrettet omkring det lille maleri med en engelfremstilling, som ellers er på museet i Jerusalem, og på dette maleris særlige proveniens. Det har tilhørt først Rainer Maria Rilke, senere Walter Benjamin, som skrev et essay om det, teksten, Tue citerer fra.

Det bringes der sammen med Fassbinders og Pasolinis værker om smertefuld europæisk besindelse. Jeg prøvede at bringe det sammen med Wenders Berlinfilm. Mine belæg i aftes var noget luftige, intuitive, når jeg identificerede Klees og Benjamins engel med Wenders og Ganzs. Så jeg må efterrationalisere, finde konkrete detaljer..

Read All About It!

A piece of promotion for a serious and competent publishing house with an excellent newsletter with links to events (conferences like the one below about Pasolini and Fassbinder, and festivals) and first of all info on new books on the seventh art. The publisher presents itself like this:

“Wallflower Press is an independent publishing house specialising in cinema and the moving image. We are devoted to the publication of the highest-quality academic and popular literature in film, television and media studies as well as related areas of the visual arts, and publish over thirty new titles each year. Through focusing on this niche area, albeit a large and growing one, we are committed to providing the widest possible range of insightful and significant texts covering the full spectrum of contemporary moving image theory and practice.”

The photo (from Agnes Varda’s Le Bonheur) is from the cover of the book: Feminist Auteurs. Reading Women’s films. By Geetha Ramanathan.

http://www.wallflowerpress.co.uk/

Fassbinder and Pasolini

A conference called ”Pasolini and Fassbinder: the European legacy between Utopia and nihilism” is to be held at Cardiff University, April 25-26. The interesting programme is to be found via the link below. Here is an excerpt from the introductory text:

In an age when Europe is increasingly perceived as an administrative and bureaucratic machine unable to inspire socio-political passion, it is perhaps time to bring back Walter Benjamin’s reflections on Paul Klee’s Angelus Novus: what if it is only by directing our gaze to the ruins of the past that we might be able to think the New? What if, more precisely, we can imagine a truly alternative vision of Europe only by redeeming the utopian spark betrayed by key events in Europe’s recent past?
Pasolini and Fassbinder are amongst the last radical authors to have emerged in Europe. Born in Italy and Germany, they inherited a traumatic social and political past which they chose to address either directly or via different topics related to the cultural memory of Europe…

http://www.cardiff.ac.uk/euros/newsandevents/events/pasolini.html